ARChon Lets You Run Android Apps on Desktop which Supports Chrome Browser

In a move to extend the Android experience all over the web, Google has begun introducing Android apps to the Chrome Web store which allows you to run Android apps on Chrome books which run on Chrome OS. As this is an experimental step, Google has made available only some of the Android apps on the Chrome web store which was disappointing. Canadian developer, Vlad Filippov doesn’t like this restriction as well, so he removed all the barriers by building a custom ARC and named it ARChon which lets you run any Android apps on Desktop that supports Chrome browser.

ARC is the Android Run time for Chrome which is built by Google to run Android on Chrome OS. But in the process Google made a safer move by restricting the compatible apps to a few leaving few chances to any misfortunes. However as an Android enthusiast, we didn’t like these restrictions as we like to explore the whole content rather than just bread crumbs. Similar idea led Filippov to create a custom ARC which will allow us to run all the Android apps on any desktop OS running Chrome browser without any restrictions.

The ARC is just a extension for Chrome OS, but it was built using Native Client, a Google project that allows Chrome to run native code safely within a web browser. The Native client is meant to be cross-platform, but Google restricted it to Chrome OS only by using ARC Chrome Web store which flagged the desktop version of chrome browser as incompatible platform. But running the custom built ARChon on your PC lets you run Android apps on Desktop without any restrictions.

However, the process is not that clear and converting the Android apps to Chrome extensions is hefty and requires some prior knowledge. But another developer created an app called Chrome APK Packager that converts the android apps to Chrome extensions automatically. This reduces the pain of converting them manually, so now get ready to experience the android apps on Desktop. The Chrome APK Packager is currently in the alpha builds and you can expect a lot of bugs in the app as any other Alpha build. Just leave the worries and get on with the guide on how to use this stuff on your PC.

HOW TO RUN ANDROID APPS ON DESKTOP

Upgrade to the latest Chrome browser on your Desktop. The version 37 or later is preferred for this process.